Author Patricia Ange Blog

The Harvard Lampoon Elects First Black Female President

The Harvard Lampoon has a new editor and her name is Alexis Wilkinson.

For the first time in the 137-year history, Harvard University’s famous undergraduate humor publication elected an African-American president, as well as its first Black female president.

During an interview with NPR, Wilkinson, a junior and inspiring comedy writer, said she is excited about her new opportunity in light of the recent discussions about diversity in comedy.

“Growing up I wasn’t allowed to watch, like, ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘The Simpsons’ and a lot of things that sort of inform Lampoon writers’ sensibility. But I was allowed to watch ‘SNL’ if I stayed up late enough. And so, like, Maya Rudolph and, you know, Kenan Thompson and all those people meant a lot to me. And so the discussion definitely made me think more about representation and what it means in comedy,” she said.